Prompted

Prompt: Tell us about a job you’ve had, either while at Grinnell or afterward.

By graduation day, I still had no postgrad plans, but I did have increasing anxieties about “success.” I found a job selling ad space in a local Yellow Pages-like publication. I was too relieved to finally have a plan and enticed by their awesome “success stories,” promises of “promotion within,” and potentially high salaries to see all the red flags. I was constantly pushed to undertake “successful” sales tactics that made me uncomfortable. When I realized I needed to quit, I promised myself I would only allow myself to quit if I put more thought into this job search. I found a new job that I loved and thrived in within two days of searching and have vowed to never prioritize my anxieties over my professional comfort again.

- Kimmie Kasperitis ’15, Corpus Christi, Texas

Summer 2017

Prompt: What's the best advice — or worst advice — you've either given or received?

When my son was born six weeks early, a co-worker told me that all the trials and tribulations we were facing would turn out OK and just “become part of his story.” At the time, I wanted to punch the person through the phone, because I thought he was minimizing the situation and didn’t understand. However, he was right. My little guy is now an amazing 12-year-old because of all the things that are “part of his story,” and I share the idea and what it means to me now, all the time.

My adviser was a senior member of the history department in 1964 when I had my first advising meeting with him. We chatted a bit about course selection and then he asked, “What do you intend to do with a history major? Become an airline stewardess?”

Even now, after 50 years, I remember being very surprised. And I did not go to work for an airline after graduation.

"Do what you love, not what makes you money.” Although true in the long run, it’s often very hard to do what you love without making money first. Also, lack of money can inhibit other non-career goals, like having kids. If you try to pursue what you love right off the bat, there’s a good chance that in order to survive you end up doing something you hate AND being poor."

I was a “secretaries’ assistant” back before secretaries were administrative professionals in Steiner, and Helyn Wohlwend was my boss, before she was a Writing Lab instructor. One day she asked me to call in an order of supplies or something, and I had never done that before and wasn’t sure how to go about it. Helyn told me, “Sara, everybody is faking it. No one knows exactly what they are doing. No one got a manual that you didn’t.” That has always stuck with me. Everyone is just making life up as they go along. It makes me feel better when I get overwhelmed and think I should have all the answers.